Apart from all of the traditional songs mentioned already in this thread that don’t “glorify war”, the Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t glorify war either, unless maybe in verse 26 that no one ever sings.
Like it or not, the U.S. wouldn’t be here if the good guys hadn’t won a war or two.
We don’t need any cheesy alternative anthems. If however someone could write good lyrics to Jupiter’s main theme in Holst’s The Planets, I’d consider it.
Jacmannii beat me to it, but the Star-Spangled Banner as actually sung does not glorify war. It’s a song of survival and perseverance. It begins and ends not with a threat or a boast, but with a question.
I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, since those renderings look pretty close to the way most people pronounce “America.”
What the singer actually sings is more like "uh-mare-uh KUH, uh-mare-uh KUH.
I thought it was the third syllable people were having problems with. It should be a short “i”, not a schwa/“uh”.
That song and video have GOT to be a joke. Id this whole thread a whoosh?
Here’s a song that I think is very patriotic. And while it is easy to classify it as militaristic, I think that misses the point if you listen to the words.
I’m reading the OP and his/her followup as being written with tongue-firmly-in-cheek, but odder opinions have been posted here.
This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie.
The abomination in the OP was sappy, predictable and nauseating in every way.
Regardless of how it “should” be pronounced, an unaccented vowel in a polysyllabic word tends to turn into a schwa in actual speech.
Sure, but it’s not over-enunciated like in the song. At least not that I’ve ever noticed. I say it with a short-i normally, myself.
Compare with the pronunciation in this song.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who thought this (from the comments on the video):
“It’s good to know that Alice Cooper can still find work. : p
You rock Alice!!”
Yeah, but…uh…no.
This man, on the other hand, is a true American patriot:
Show 'Em to Me
(warning: tame but NSFW (some boobies))
“This Is My Country” would make a good anthem.
Would never work. The U.S. does not use a parliamentary system.
I actually think this would make a great national anthem. (warning: strong language.)
You owe me a keyboard, Quintas . . . because I just beat myself to death with mine, to make him stop singing.
Fuck all of you guys.
The biggest problem I have with the song in the OP is that it doesn’t have anything to do with the USA. It’s a guy singing about how he’s dead now, but don’t worry, and then out of nowhere a few "America"s that don’t have anything to do with anything. “This Land is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful” describe geographical features of the country; “The Star-Spangled Banner” is about our flag and a significant battle in our history. Heck, even “Yankee Doodle” re-claimed a word that our enemies used derisively for us. This thing, though? You could replace every instance of “America” with “The Czech Republic”, and it would make just as much sense.
That was awesome.
